Written by

Walter F. Roche Jr.

The Tennessean

The defunct drug compounding company blamed for 64 deaths nationwide and 16 in Tennessee from a fungus-tainted steroid is now being blamed for the deaths of two Nevada children who were administered a different drug from the same company during open heart surgery.

In the two nearly identical suits filed in U.S. District Court in Nevada, the parents of the two children charge that a heart medication called cardioplegia led to the deaths in September of last year. Both had undergone surgery at the Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center in Las Vegas.

The hospital, its pharmacist, and the owners of the now-defunct New England Compounding Center are named as defendants in the cases.

According to the court filings, Zacharie Rood-Sucharzewski, 6, was administered the drug on July 12 of last year and died on Sept. 6. His father, Alan Suchsrzewski, was not informed that the heart drug their son had been administered had been recalled until Oct. 18.

In the second case, Ari Thomas Gomez, 4, was administered the same drug on Aug. 14, 2012, and died on Sept. 24, nine days after his fourth birthday. His mother, Katrina Eldreth, according to the complaint, was not informed that her son had been treated with the same recalled drug until she received a letter from Sunrise dated Oct. 18.

The suits charge that the hospital and its pharmacist were negligent in purchasing the drug from NECC, which had a history of regulatory troubles.

The Nevada suits follow the filing of several dozen suits on behalf of victims and their survivors who contracted fungal meningitis after being injected with a tainted steroid at Tennessee health facilities.

Besides the owners of NECC, the suit names as a defendant a sister company owned by the same principals and another company that performed sterility tests on NECC products.

In addition to negligence, the suits charge violations of Nevada’s product liability law.

The recall of cardioplegia and all other drugs shipped by NECC came after federal inspectors found widespread fungal and bacterial contamination in the company’s Framingham, Mass., headquarters.